Yesterday, the Department of Energy announced that three enrichment services companies have been awarded task orders worth $900 million each. Those task orders were given to American Centrifuge Operating (a Centrus Energy subsidiary) and General Matter, both of which will develop domestic HALEU enrichment capacity, along with Orano Federal Services, which will build domestic LEU enrichment capacity.

The DOE also announced that it has awarded Global Laser Enrichment an additional $28 million to continue advancing next generation enrichment technology.

The United States Embassy and Consulate in Kazakhstan announced in December that the two countries are expanding their partnership in civil nuclear energy with a new educational initiative about small modular reactors.

Curtiss-Wright has successfully tested several full prototypes of a new high temperature neutron flux detector that we have developed to operate at up to 800°C, a necessary feature for many new reactor types. The new detectors are fission ionization chambers and the prototypes were constructed in our own facilities, which we use to manufacture our mature detector designs that operate at up to 600°C in the UK’s AGR fleet. Curtiss-Wright has a comprehensive suite of reactor protection electronics and the new detector is designed to complement our Guardline™ reactor protection system.

Sukesh Aghara

When I wrote “From Quad to Grid” last year (Nuclear News, August 2025, p. 10), I argued that universities could serve as honest brokers in bridging public trust and technical execution for nuclear energy. Since then, state-level interest has surged. Governors and legislatures are no longer debating whether nuclear belongs in the clean energy portfolio—they’re budgeting for it; staffing it; and tying it to jobs, industrial growth, and grid reliability.

This momentum isn’t a sudden change of heart. It’s the result of four timelines that have quietly converged over decades.

The Department of Energy has announced the successful transfer of the first Mark-18A target from the Savannah River Site to Savannah River National Laboratory, marking “the beginning of operations for a newly established radiochemical separation capability to recover valuable isotopes.” The agency stated that the Mark-18A Target Recovery Program—which involves the DOE National Nuclear Security Administration, the Office of Environmental Management, and the Office of Science—is demonstrating “how legacy materials previously destined for disposal can be recovered and transformed into valuable resources.”

In 2025, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul was a vocal supporter of new nuclear development in the state. In October, she called on the New York Power Authority (NYPA)—the state’s public electric utility—to add 1 GW of new nuclear.

At the tail end of December, New York made more nuclear progress on three fronts. Hochul signed an agreement with Ontario Premier Doug Ford to collaborate on new nuclear development, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) signed a memorandum of understanding with the NYPA, and New York finalized its 2025 energy plan.

New York City–based Nano Nuclear Energy has signed a memorandum of understanding with the University of Illinois Board of Trustees, on behalf of the University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign, to collaborate on the development, construction, and operation of the company’s Kronos MMR (micro modular reactor) as an on-campus research reactor. The new MOU represents the latest aspect of Nano Nuclear’s partnership on the Kronos MMR project with the university, which includes state funding for a manufacturing and research center, to be located in the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook.

Douglas Weaver, nominated to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by President Trump and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, was sworn in on December 22 as a commissioner for a term ending June 30, 2026. The appointment brings the NRC to its full five members. Weaver fills a seat that had been vacant since the resignation of Annie Caputo in July 2025, and he is one of only a handful of former NRC staff members to serve on the commission.

Following up on an October announcement on plans to invest more heavily in nuclear power, Duke Energy closed out 2025 by submitting an early site permit application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This ESP application is for a site near the Belews Creek Steam Station, a coal and natural gas plant in Stokes County, N.C., where Duke has been pursuing a new nuclear project for two years.

Southern Nuclear is leading the charge in artificial intelligence integration, with employee-developed applications driving efficiencies in maintenance, operations, safety, and performance.

The tools span all roles within the company, with thousands of documented uses throughout the fleet, including improved maintenance efficiency, risk awareness in maintenance activities, and better-informed decision-making. The data-intensive process of preparing for and executing maintenance operations is streamlined by leveraging AI to put the right information at the fingertips for maintenance leaders, planners, schedulers, engineers, and technicians.

Urenco USA has highlighted the completion of a successful year of advancing nuclear fuel supply in the U.S. by achieving two new milestones this month: The first production of enriched uranium above 5 percent uranium-235, and the startup of the company’s next cascade of centrifuges as part of its capacity installation program.

Trump Media & Technology Group, the American media and technology company majority owned by President Trump, and California-based fusion company TAE Technologies, announced on Thursday the signing of a definitive merger agreement to combine in an all-stock transaction valued at more than $6 billion.

Progress in the Department of Energy’s Reactor Pilot Program continues as Natura Resources has executed an Other Transaction Agreement (OTA) with the DOE for the company’s Molten Salt Research Reactor being pursued in close collaboration with Abilene Christian University (ACU) in Texas. Reactor projects participating in the program would progress through DOE authorization and oversight rather than Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing.

Three commercial power reactors across two Illinois nuclear power plants—Constellation’s Clinton and Dresden—have had their licenses renewed for 20 more years by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The Electric Power Research Institute has launched a global initiative to prepare future grids by modernizing how the electricity-generating sector detects, anticipates, and responds to emerging risks and manages technological transformation. The nonprofit energy research and development organization intends for the initiative, called Rapid Adaptation of Grid Defense, Analytics, and Resilience (RADAR), to provide a scalable framework, advanced tools, and targeted training for strengthening grid resilience and reliability.

Fusion technology company Thea Energy announced this week that it has completed the preconceptual design of its fusion power plant, called Helios. According to the company, Helios is “the first stellarator fusion power plant architecture that is realistic to build and operate with hardware that is available today, and that is tolerant to the rigors of manufacturing, construction, long-term operation, and maintenance of a commercial device.”

The Department of Energy Office of Environment, Health, Safety and Security (EHSS) held its annual meeting this month with the government of the Marshall Islands. The two-and-a-half-day meeting, in Honolulu, Hawaii, focused on ongoing cooperative efforts and programs related to the legacy of U.S. nuclear weapons testing from the 1940s and 1950s. The United States began cleanup operations on the islands in the 1970s.

France’s state-owned electric utility EDF has announced that Flamanville-3—the country’s first EPR—reached full nuclear thermal power for the first time, generating 1,669 megawatts of gross electrical power. This major milestone is significant in terms of both this project and France’s broader nuclear sector.

Cornyn

Padilla

Sens. Alex Padilla (D., Calif.) and John Cornyn (R., Texas) have introduced bipartisan legislation to formally establish the Office of Fusion at the Department of Energy. This move seeks to codify one of the many changes put forward by the recent internal reorganization plan for offices at the DOE.

Companion legislation has been introduced in the House of Representatives by Reps. Don Beyer (D., Va.) and Jay Obernolte (R., Calif.), who are cochairs of the House Fusion Energy Caucus.

Details: According to Obernolte, “Congress must provide clear direction and a coordinated federal strategy to move fusion from the lab to the grid, and this legislation does exactly that.”

The core of Pile No. 1 at Windscale caught fire in the fall of 1957. The incident, rated a level 5, “Accident with Wider Consequences,” by the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES), has since inspired nuclear safety culture, risk assessment, accident modeling, and emergency preparedness. Windscale also helped show how important communication and transparency are to gaining trust and public support.